


We're healing

by redshineJasper (MrsPummeluff)



Series: Stucky OneShots [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And Natasha is a good friend, And Tony is an amazing friend, Fury isn't always an ass okay, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-TWS, Protective Bucky Barnes, SHIELD actually helped Bucky, Skinny Steve gets in trouble (a lot), Steve Rogers Has Issues, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Stony friendship is important okay, they are great friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsPummeluff/pseuds/redshineJasper
Summary: Steve and the other Avengers are going after the remaining HYDRA cells, while Steve still waits for Bucky to come back. He knows Bucky will come when he’s ready. He would wait too. After all, he still has things to deal with himself.Warnings: Nightmares, Steve Rogers in the 1930’s so naturally he starts fights, talk about feelings





	We're healing

_Raising his balled fists in front of him protectively, he glared at the apparent leader and was not backing down._  
_“You sure do not know when the time’s come to give up, don’t you, Rogers?” he spits and Steve glares. One of the older boys shoves him back further into the alley and he tumbles into a pile of trash. Another boy fists his hand into the front of his shirt and pulls him up, forcefully, and his chest crashed into the fist. Breathing became harder, when the asthma attack started. It was just a little more pressure on his chest, he tried to tell himself. Not much. No need to panic over not enough air. It would be better in a second if he would just stop god damn hyperventilating. Like right now._  
_The laughter from the other boys sounded far away, his vision became blurry and again a hand shoved him, this time not into the pile of trash but onto the hard concrete floor. His chest ached. It felt like tons of bricks. Like he stood in a tunnel, people on the other end calling for him. Shouting at him to come back. Come closer. Hurry up. To wake up._  
_The heavy feeling of stones on his chest._  
_Heavy on his back._  
_Heavy on his arms._  
_Calls to wake up._  
_Heavy on his legs._  
_Heavy._  
_Suppressing._  
_Wake up._  
_Breathing hurt, felt hollow. Tears prevented him from seeing. It was dark around him. But hadn’t it been bright as day just seconds ago? The light now seemed so far away. On the other end of the tunnel._  
_The stones felt heavy on his shoulders. Everything around him was shaking._  
_The stones were shaking._  
_The stones wrapped around his thin shoulders. Though they weren’t so slim anymore as he was sure they had been._  
_They were broad. He was tall._  
_Someone was calling his name. The stones were wrapping around his shoulders. Tighter. Digging into his flesh._  
_Digging into his hips._  
_Tight. Clang to his waist._  
_They became softer._  
_Softer._  
_Softer?_  
_His name got louder. Clearer._  
_A woman._  
_She didn’t sound like his mom._  
_She did sound familiar._  
_She did sound like family._  
_Safety._  
_Safe._  
_Steve._  
_Steve!_  
_Steven._  
_Wake up._

“Wake up!”                           

Steve jolted awake. Natasha was looming over him, pinning him down by his waist and his shoulders, her short fingernails digging into his flesh. It had been a dream, he started to realize. It had been a nightmare. His friend was looking down at him, her mouth a worried frown.  
“Good.” She mumbled and pressed her finger against his pulse point. His heart rate started sinking again, which seemed to be a good thing, considering the fact that her frown eased.  
She moved up, away from his hip, keeping her finger on his pulse point till she was certain his heart rate stayed nice and slow. Tears dried on Steve’s cheeks but he wasn’t about to wipe them away.  
“What was it?” Natasha asked after a while of mutual comfortable silence. He just shook his head. He couldn’t think about it. Not now. Not before the mission.  
She nodded. Understood.

Steve sank back into the pillows, pulling the blanket tighter. He felt Natasha’s hand on his thigh, light. No pressure. Just like another memory.  
When she stood up, he didn’t even notice, falling back into the memories of his mom and Bucky, combing their hands through his hair to soothe him when he woke up from a fever dream in the middle of the night. Scared. When he couldn’t breathe. Their voices low, tired. But so gentle. So were their touches. Always gentle. Concerned.  
He never liked being treated with kid gloves but shaken from the nightmares he had preferred it.

He heard how the door opened and remembered that he was back in 2014. He was somewhere in America, but far away from Brooklyn. Far away from home. Years away. Decades. In the Future. But not as alone as he had thought, just months ago. Just two years ago when he woke up in the New York of the Future. Because now he knew, Bucky was alive. And maybe his friend would come back to him. Bucky always came back.

Someone pulled his hands away from the blanket and replaced the soft material with something thicker. But even softer. He looked up, Tony looming over him, glance uncertain on the soft object in Steve’s hand. The Captain looked down and tears filled his eyes again.  
“I found it. A few years ago in a box with dad’s old stuff. I… I remembered having it in that box a few weeks ago. You know… after DC. Stitched it up a bit. Thought you might like it. It’s authentic. May even have been one of the first they ever produced. I don’t know. Pretty sure it was. Dad was always crazy like that.” Tony babbled away. He wasn’t good in expressing his feelings. Maybe that was why he and Steve hadn’t really hit it off in the beginning. But Tony was a good guy. That much Steve knew. Steve respected the genius just like he had respected Howard. They were so much alike but so different all the same.

He looked back at the plush toy Tony had given him minutes ago. The little black mask made him smile. Bucky always hated it but Steve thought it was cute. Finally shows you as the Superhero you really are, he used to say Buck, when Dum Dum or Falsworth were teasing him about the toys again.  
His right ear had a few newer looking stitches. Then his glance wandered towards his left arm and Steve frowned. The arm itself looked mostly normal. Except for a few… greyish, patches. He raised an questioning eyebrow at Tony. The Genius smiled sheepishly.  
“I may have had this toy as a kid apparently. Doesn’t always survive. I had to repair the arm and thought… okay. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I am sure it was something along the lines that we can fix your friend if we find him?”  
Steve smiled.  
“Thank you, Tony.” He pressed his face into the head of the bear and took a deep breath. It smelled newly washed but the feel of the bear in his arms reminded him of a few nights back in the war.  
In France maybe.  
Or Germany. Maybe both. Most likely both. The smell of gunpowder, desperately needed showers or a wash in general for all of them, the chill when it was close to winter and the smell of Bucky next to him, when he became cold.

_Don’t ask, don’t tell had been a thing but none of them cared anyways. When it was cold Dum Dum would crawl into Dernier’s tent whereas Morita and Jones would keep each other warm and one of them would switch with Falsworth during the night, relieving him of guard duty. No one interrupted him and Bucky. Never. Like an unspoken rule between the five of them no matter how often Steve and Bucky told them to wake them. They knew about the Nightmares that kept Bucky awake some nights, things he never told them about what had happened to him in his time with Zola. They also knew how worried their friend became if it would get cold and Steve was lying there in nothing more than the bed roll. Steve couldn’t get sick, Bucky and the Commandos knew. But everyone except Steve saw, how the past was still set in Buckys head and how worried he was, Steve could get sick and die on them. All of them had things in their past that they could never get rid of. Habits. Thoughts.  
They knew for Bucky it was keeping Steve warm when it got cold. _

_One night, Steve remembered, Bucky had went to bed but not before reminding him to not to stay up for too long even though Steve could handle all-nighters now thanks to the Serum, Dernier had sat down next to Steve, the others asleep in their tents, only the both of them, and had smiled at him. They have had a long day in combat, Steve nearly getting shot by a German soldier. Jones had seen the enemy and tackled the Supersoldier to the ground and Bucky had hit him right between the eyes._  
_“A friendship like this, my friend,” the French Soldier had whispered, smiling, “is nothing to underestimate. Never take your friend for granted. You’ve done good with him. And I know, everyone would have expected from you to get married years ago if one of you would be a fine lady. You ground each other. And you would be dead without him.”_  
_Steve had laughed bitter._  
_“I definitely would be. It was only thanks to him I had my medicine when I was home sick these past years.”_  
_Dernier had smiled._  
_“Go to your boy. He will suffer more nightmares if you’re not with him and he deserves his sleep after saving his Captain’s ass today.”_  
_“His Captain sounds like an Idiot.” Steve had joked and Dernier had shaken his head in delight._  
_“He can be. But he is a good man inside. A very good man.”_  
_With that he had pushed Steve towards Bucky’s tent and taken over Steve’s watch._

It was a simple memory, in fact. One of Steve’s favorites maybe. Sometimes. He was sure it was Dernier who had left the Bucky bear on his bed roll a while later. Then it had gotten lost during the war maybe. Or someone had bought it. It didn’t matter. It had never mattered. The bear hadn’t mattered. He had just been a nice touch.  
But this? This little gesture from Tony- it mattered more than anything.  
Steve smiled at his friend.  
“Thanks. Really. I mean it.”  
Tony smiled embarrassed. Then clapped Steve’s shoulder.  
“And now stop being a sap on me Capsicle and get up anytime soon. We have breakfast and then we let you burn this HYDRA base to the ground.” Tony stood up and walked towards the door.  
“Up and at ‘em, Cap. Up and at ‘em.” With that he disappeared from sight.

Sometime later Steve was back to his old self, caffeinated, in his Captain America Uniform (minus the helm that laid in front of him on the table) and a file in his hand. In general not really different from the other days when they were taking out the remaining HYDRA cells. Remembering Zola’s words, he smiled to himself. HYDRA wasn’t like that anymore. Not nowadays. They couldn’t recruit any more people. They were about to extinguish and that was good. Natasha gave him a few more worried glances but didn’t say anything and when any of them saw the little Bucky bear under his shield during the briefing, they didn’t think about mentioning it. Sitting in the Quinjet, Tony fell onto the seat next to Steve and both of them were comfortably silent, while Steve’s fingers trailed over the edges of the mask his bear wore, the trim of the blue jacket. The tip of his fingers stroked the silver patches on the arm. He appreciated it. Gave Tony a smile that said it all.  
Thanks for keeping it.  
Thanks for repairing it.  
Thanks for giving it to me.  
Thanks for not putting some kind of technology in it.  
Just, you know, thanks.  
And Tony raised an eyebrow and just nodded barely noticeable.

Getting out of the jet, Steve left the bear on one of the seats near the entrance. Then he send his team on its way to infiltrate the basis. Widow seemed kind of distracted, uncomfortable, what made him itch and he looked around but he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. So he went his own way, finding his own way into the compound.

Not long later he found himself cornered, outside again, by at least ten HYDRA goons.  
“Tony get the drive back into the Tower, ASAP. We will finish this up here.” He bellowed into his com while bashing his shield into the head of one of the attackers. You should think they heard about the fate of their colleagues in the other buildings and would give up. But understandable that you haven’t had to be smart to work for HYDRA. No one with some kind of intelligence would work for them anyways, Steve thought. Blocking a blow from one of the HYDRA agents, another one used his chance and got Steve good, hitting him in the middle of the chest. Steve stopped for a second before throwing his shield and knocking out three more. Four down, six to go, he thought, when one of the six remaining attackers fell to the ground, arrow sticking out of his back.  
“Thanks Clint.” Steve smiled and heard a grunt from Hawkeye in return. Dodging a few more blows from the attackers, he didn’t notice one of them coming up from behind and a blow into his back and his side made him tumble. Pain shot through his whole body when he noticed the little syringe sticking in his side. It was black, a small red star on it and he looked at the five remaining men in front of him.  
“They are meant to paralyze the Asset when we find him. Thought one of them would make getting you, and him thanks to you, easier.” The one that had attacked him from behind smiled.  
“Son of a…” Steve murmured and took a step forward, trying to land a blow against the man standing the closest to him, but his vision gut blurry. The Captain stumbled and pain shit through his leg.

_He tried to get up again. Straightening up.  
“You give up yet, Rogers?”_

“Still trying to fight us? Can’t even stand straight let alone throw a punch. Give up.”

_“I could do this all day.” He spat, raising his hurting fists into a fighting stance._

“I could do this all day.” He tried to stand up straighter.

_He glanced at the group of kids. They were smirking, but Steve saw a shadow coming up behind them. Something silver glanced in the light in the tight alley.  
No. This couldn’t be right. There was nothing that could glance in the light. Not like this. Not in combination with the bright blue eyes that were staring at him disapprovingly and the frown in his best friends face. His long hair falling into his face. Long? _

Steve shook his head, mind coming back into the present, just to see the pure terror on the face of the remaining HYDRA Agent before a bullet pierced his head and his body crumbled to the floor next to the rest of his colleagues. Steve tried to focus on the big, black shadow with a gun still raised but the vision was blurry, everything hurt. He couldn’t walk, his head pounded The memory still painfully raging in his head.  
The gun was lowered as Steve stumbled and toppled over into the figure and a pair of strong, warm arms wrapped around him.

_“Couldn’t have waited ten more minutes, ain’t it right you punk? Had to go an’ pick a fight before I could get off of work.” Bucky huffed._

He pushed Steve’s head back a bit and his right hand ghosted over the bruises that would be gone soon.

“I had it under control, Buck.” He mumbled quietly, trying to get up when a flash of pain shot through his body. Again. He felt himself pulled closer towards the warm, strong body.

“Sure you had. Still stupid. You can be glad Fury cleared me a few hours ago for field duty and got me here as fast as possible.” Bucky said and finally his brain cleared enough to register that it really WAS Bucky who held him tight.

_He felt himself being cradled into his friends arm, lying bridal-style in his friends arms, the metal arm barely different than the normal out of… since when did Bucky have an arm out of metal? Still Steve leaned into his friend, savoring the touch. Being coddled wasn’t really his favorite pastime, but being close to Bucky made it worth it._

“You don’t have to carry me, Buck.” Steve protested, as Bucky stood up straight again. It was…. Inconvenient, Steve being taller than Bucky and bigger then when he was a kid, but somehow the ex-Assassin seemed to make it work.  
“You’re hurt, Stevie and I won’t let you walk with your ankle in pain.”

_Steve grunted.  
“Please, put me down, it's just a sprained ankle.” He tried to argue, but his friend ignored him pointedly. Luckily they were really close to home otherwise Steve would have tried to argue more. _

But one of these goons had gotten him good and his head felt like it would burst any second. He felt them getting closer to the Quinjet and then felt himself lowered onto one of the seats. Not a second later he heard a snort next to him and opened his eyes (when had he closed them for good?) and squinted towards Bucky, not even one step next to him, holding the little Bucky bear in his metal hand.  
“Where the hell did you get that from?” he wanted to know, smiling at Steve brightly. Steve just stared at Bucky. Then he started laughing. Wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t. Hands clutching his sides, eyes closed tightly. He felt a pair of arms wrap around him and warm breath in his neck.

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh. Good to know you’re glad havin’ me back.” Bucky said and Steve could hear the smile in his voice.  
“How?” he managed after a while and turned his head towards Bucky.  
“How about I bring take out over to your place later and I tell you? Fury can bite my ass when he thinks I stay away from you any longer now that I am cleared.”  
Steve smiled, still confused by how it was possible that Bucky was here, remembering, knowing. It had to be a dream. But it wasn’t one. He knew. Bucky would have kissed him by now, if it was a dream. Steve smiled again, brightly.  
“Sounds like a plan.” He mumbled, when suddenly Natasha’s voice filled his ear.  
“Steve? Where are you? We can’t find you and we have intel that the Winter Soldier…” he cut her off.  
“I’m back at the jet. Bucky is with me. He brought me here after they got me with some strange paralyzer or something. We’re good. Now get back, I wanna go home.” He pulled the bear out of Bucky grip and pulled it closer.  
“Mine.” He mumbled and leaned against Bucky, before falling asleep within seconds. A few hours before a nightmare and then getting a paralyzer injected took its toll even on a supersoldier. Bucky’s hand stroke over his sides and he smiled, looking at Steve. All these months with SHIELD had been worth it.

* * *

 

Coming back into his apartment after a medical check and a lot of debrief, Steve collapsed onto his couch. Still floating high on the emotions of having Bucky again, and it had been Bucky, Natasha had agreed when he woke up and asked about him.  
Apparently he had barely talked to anyone during the flight, just sat next to Steve and no one had wanted to talk to him. Not because they had been afraid, at least Natasha hadn’t, but because he had looked so content next to Steve. Calm. Relaxed.

He heard the window next to the fire escape side open and turned his head, watching Bucky with a bag of take-out entering the apartment.  
“I have a door.” Steve grunted and pulled a pillow towards his head. Bucky shrugged.  
“You should have better locks. I could be a mugger.”  
“Sure. Whatever you say, Buck. You could be a mugger for all I care. You could kill me and I would still die happy.”

He knew the blow against his head was coming before Bucky even had reached him but he didn’t even try to block it. He was just… content.  
“You really should take more care, Stevie. I—“  
Steve tugged at his sleeve.  
“Honestly, Bucky. I don’t care right now. You are back. I knew you would come back. I still don’t know how you did it, but I am happy you are. And now sit down. Please.” The puppy dog eyes apparently still worked wonders on the older man because with a sigh he sat down next to Steve’s head and the blonde pulled himself up, enough to get his head into his friend’s lap. He was handed a box, Chinese apparently, and opened it, savoring the warmth and the touch of his best friend.

“You know I still am fucked up and just still healing?” Bucky’s voice breached the silence and Steve shrugged as good as he could, lying down.  
“I still am healing too, you know. I have nightmares, PTSD. I know I have.” Steve said eating some more.

“After I fished you out of the water,” Bucky started again after a few minutes, “I left. I knew I couldn’t go back to my handlers. There was something inside me that was yelling at me, trying to catch my attention. It told me I need you. I should go back. I remembered you, you know. Being my mission. Being the mission I had my whole life. The mission was keeping you safe. But I knew they gave me the mission to kill you. I wasn’t sure what to do, what I would do if I saw you again. After a few weeks this guy, Phil Coulson, found me. Told me, SHIELD was looking for me. I could come quietly or they would make me. I didn’t want to fight it. He brought me to Fury, you know. The first thing I did, and it surprised everyone including myself, was apologizing for shooting him. They sat me down,” Bucky took a deep breath and looked at Steve, but the blond was just staring at Bucky, adoration and understanding shining bright in his eyes.  
“They sat me down” he repeated, “and I just talked. Everything I could remember. Everything that could be of help. Most of the hideouts you cleared the past few months came from me. I asked them to help me. I needed help, still need it. But I wanted to get better. For you. For me. For us. I couldn’t come back before I wasn’t. Earlier today Fury finally cleared me. Told me, I was allowed to take my new gear and go into combat alone. He told me where you and your team were and a jet brought me there. I knew I was ready.”  
Bucky and Steve started at each other for a while before a smile crept on Steve’s face.  
“I always knew you would come back, you know. You always knew the right thing to do. Maybe you didn’t take all the stupid with you.”  
“How could I if it clung on you like a second skin?” Bucky teased back and a tear rolled down Steve’s cheek. Bucky didn’t mention it.

* * *

 

“You know. Back in the war, Dernier told me things that made me think. And he gave me a mission I think. Something like that at least.” Bucky said after a few weeks while they were seated on Steve’s Kitchen Island, eating self-made pancakes at 2 in the morning after returning from another round of fighting HYDRA goons.  
“Yeah? What did he say?” Steve asked around a mouthful of chocolate pancake.  
“That as soon as we are in combat you always let your guard down to get my full attention. And he was right. And it is dumb as hell. You know better than that, Stevie.” The blonde shrugged.  
“And the mission?” he wanted to know and Bucky grinned. Then he pulled one of the chains from around his neck off and slid it over the table. On it was a plain and simple golden Ring.  
“This is…” Steve took the ring and looked at it.  
“Yeah. My mum’s wedding ring. I kept it in a bag in my tent. Apparently, after I fell, Peggy found and kept it. At least she gave it to me when I visited her.”  
“You went to see Peggy?”  
Bucky nodded.  
“Getting confirmation of some memories I couldn’t make sense of. Nevertheless, I promised Dernier I would ask you, you know. To marry me. It wouldn’t have mattered that we couldn’t do it back then. I would have spent my whole life like this. Without a wife to come home to, because I would have you. I always knew you loved me. You knew I loved you. We always worked. There was never any pining because we worked. We knew what we meant to each other. But he made me promise, in English, French and even german, that I would ask you as soon as the war is over. It is, more or less. And I think right now is a good moment to ask.”

Bucky looked up for the first time since he started his little speech and saw Steve smiling at him softly. He put his hand in the middle of the table and Steve gripped it immediately and squeezed lightly.

“To ask what?” Steve asked, grinning, because he was a little shit and Bucky knew it.

“If you think that Natasha would marry me.” Bucky deadpanned and Steve laughed quietly.

“I don’t think she would. But I definitely wouldn’t say no.” And then he went and took his ma’s old ring from the top drawer in his dresser and brought it to the table, pushing the little, black velvet box into Bucky’s hand, taking the ring on the chain Bucky had given him earlier and put it around his neck. He would ask Natasha and Sam tomorrow if they could help them, plan their wedding. For now, he stepped into Bucky’s space and pressed a light, gentle kiss against his eyebrow. And Bucky smiled at him, keeping the Ring Steve had given him tight in his hand.  
Yeah. He was healing. So was Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> It was the first thing I wrote in a long while and I am glad that I've found such a great beta.  
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://fangirl-faye.tumblr.com) if you want.


End file.
